Microsoft Releases IE8 beta 1

A surpise move from Microsoft! They have released the new version of Internet Explorer, IE8. And its available for download. This shows the software giant is
not going to allow Firefox creep into its market share. You can download the latest version (beta 1) but now lets have a look at what features will IE8 provide.

Microsoft had promised the availability first beta version in first half of 2008. They also promised that it will have full support for web standards. With this beta release, Microsoft is looking at web developers and designer community and detailing some of the investments in the product for this audience. That means, They are trying to avoid broken pages! IE7 broke pages that used to work in IE6, so did the other older versions.

With IE8, Microsoft wants to improve the standards conformance of the browser and bring it up to a level that's comparable to Firefox and others. Plus make it backward compatible! IE8 will have three rendering engines, two of which are the already familiar "quirks mode" and "(not so) standards mode." used in IE7 and a new engine. This mode will be activated through
<meta> tag. So you will have to add:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

IE will claim to be faster and will have some exciting features like

Activities
Activities are contextual services to quickly access a service from any web page. Some commonly use tasks like "Add to Digg", send as email etc.Activities are services that the user can install and manage. They are some what like add-ons in Fire fox, but with a specific use.

WebSlices
This is a new feature for where users can get information by subscribing to content directly within a web page. They behave like feeds in short! Internet Explorer 8 Users can discover WebSlices within a web page and add them to the Favorites bar(just like fire fox).

Favorites Bar
In IE7, User where able to access their favorite with a single click. Now you will get dedicated bar on top of tabs.The favorite bar can have links, feeds, WebSlices and even Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

Automatic Crash Recovery
Another new feature that is already present in IE's competitors. A crash recovery functionality to prevent the loss of work and productivity in the event of the browser crashing or hanging.

Phishing Filter
This is not a new feature, but Microsoft says its improved and will have some new features added to phishing filter.

IE8 doesn't bring much of a innovation. Its competitor like Firefox 2.0 and Opera already have these features. Microsoft is bound to loose its browser market if IE8 can't make up to the features provided my others.

Mandriva's open letter to Steve Ballmer

I came across Mandirva' Blog and site after a long time. I have used the distro when it was named Mandrake. One of their blog entries caught me. It shows how unethical Microsoft is.

It’s an open letter to Micorsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Here is the full post:

Dear Steve,

Hi, this is François, from Mandriva.

I’m sure we are way too small for you to have heard of us. You know, we are one of these Linux company who is working hard to make its place in the market. We publish a Linux Distro, called Mandriva Linux. Mandriva Linux 2008, our last edition, has a pretty good review and we’re proud of it. You should try it, I’m sure you’d like it. We also happen to be one of the Linux companies that did not sign an agreement with your company (nobody’s perfect).

We recently closed a deal with the Nigerian Government. Maybe you heard about it, Steve. They were looking for an affordable hardware+software solution for their schools. The initial batch was 17,000 machines. We had a good deal to respond to their need: the Classmate PC from Intel, with a customized Mandriva Linux solution. We presented the solution to the local government, they liked the machine, they liked our system, they liked what we offered them, especially the fact that it was open, and that we could customize it for their country and so on.

Then, your people get in the game and the deal got more competitive. I would not say it got dirty, but someone could have said that. Your team fought and fought again the deal, but still the customer was happy with the CMPC and Mandriva.
We actually closed the deal, we took the order, we qualified the software, we got the machine shipped. To conclude, we did our job. And, the machine are being delivered right now.

Now, we hear a different story from the customer: “we shall pay for the Mandriva Software as agreed, but we shall replace it by Windows afterward.”
Wow! I’m impressed, Steve! What have you done to these guys to make them change their mind like this? It’s quite clear to me, and it will be to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve? There is various names for it, I’m sure you know them.
Of course, I will keep fighting this one and the next one, and the next one. You have the money, the power, and maybe we have a different sense of ethics you and I, but I still believe that hard work, good technology and ethics can win too.

cheers

François

PS: a message to our friends in Nigeria: it’s still time to do the right thing and make the right choice, you will get lots of support for it and excellent services!

I am quite happy to see the Mandriva challenge Microsoft, because it has gone through bankruptcy protection and have emerged a strong open source player.

Microsoft's open source licenses.

Microsoft seems to be trying to create a open source license after all the criticizing it had done in recent months. They appear to be working on a new license for their own open source code and software and get it approved by OSI. So Microsoft has submitted its so-called shared source licenses to the Open Source Initiative for certification as true open-source licenses.

Microsoft initially started off with the relase of Windows Installer XML on SourceForge almost three years ago. After this Microsoft has released 650 internally developed software programs to the general public via its shared source program. At the same time don't expect Them to release Windows or other major revenue making software to be released under the shared source licenses. These shared source applications are hosted at Microsoft's CodePlex site, which is equivalent to SourceForge.They have come up with three licenses:

• Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL)
• Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL)
  
• Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL)
  

According to Microsoft,if the licenses are approved, should give the community additional confidence that the code they sharing is truly Open Source. But I wonder how the OSI team and the open source community will take this. This is mainly because of the recent behavour of the company with copen source community.They have claimed that Linux and other open-source products infringe on 235 of its patents. Apart from this they reached agreements with Novell Inc and other vendors like Linspire which brought a split within the Linux community.

So, If Microsoft joins the open source technology like Nokia, Apple and others, will we have a mind shift from Microsoft? Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who once called Linux "a cancer"! And
now they seems to criticize and follow the open source line!

Microsoft Strikes GPLv3 and ditchs Linspire!

Yet again Microsoft plays out its plan to mess up Linux and open source software. I am sure you must have heard about the MS deal with Novell and Linspire.And now we see how MS is ditching both these compaines after the so called "patent protection deal"!

The latest : Microsoft says that's open source software licensed under GPLv3 isn't covered by the patent protection deal it recently signed with desktop Linux distributor Linspire.

On "Microsoft Interoperability" site it says "software products of Linspire that include the Linux operating system, including Linspire Five-0 and successor offerings. However, Client Offerings do not include (i) any portions of products that comprise or include Foundry Products, Clone Products, GPLv3 Software or Other Excluded Products, (ii) Freespire and any other software offerings that include the Linux operating system for which Linspire receives no Revenue, (iii) any products running on a server, or (iv) any Linspire CNR applications distributed separately from the Linux operating system."

The article appeared on MS site on July 5th, 6 days after GPLv3 was launched. From the time of launch Microsoft has been treating GPLv3 software as highly radioactive. Just after the launch, Microsoft said "Microsoft isn't a party to the GPLv3 license and none of its actions are to be misinterpreted as accepting status as a contracting party of GPLv3 or assuming any legal obligations under such license,".

Its not just Linspire that's the target,but Novell is also in the trap.Microsoft recently said that it wouldn't distribute any GPLv3 software under its SUSE Linux alliance with Novell. But Novell insists that GPLv3 does not touch their agreement. So does Microsoft! So now we know that's going to happen with the agreements if Novell and Linspire want to provide GPLv3 softwares! And this is how Microsoft does the business -- Destroy your competitor!

What is Acropolis?

Microsoft have given enough publicty for Silverlight, but did they miss out one of their own product during the RIA campain against Adobe's Flex and Apollo or Sun's JavaFX? I am talking about "Acropolis", A code named project which microsoft has been working on for long.It's a toolkit for creating modular, business-focused Windows client applications. Its build on .NET framework and includes a run-time framework,tools and out-of-the-box functionality. The basic idea is to alow build reusable,connectable components and assemble them to work as an application.

"Acropolis" applications consist of a shell and one or more discrete pieces of business logic that interact with each other. These pieces of business logic, called parts, are the building blocks of an "Acropolis" application. A part that logically contains other parts is called a form. So, "Acropolis" part contains only the business logic and no user interface code, but a part do have a interface accociated with it.These are called a part view or just view. To build a "Acropolis" application, we will need a xaml file, and c# or VB file. The xaml file will contain the connection point and service dependency declarations for the part. And, Visual C# or Visual Basic file contains the business logic of the part.

The "Acropolis" runtime and shell provide a framework and an application host to create smart client applications. The runtime manages the lifetimes and intercommunication of all parts and services in an "Acropolis" application. On the other hand, shell is shell is a parent or host application that integrates "Acropolis" parts, forms, and services together with its own functionality. It defines the overall appearance and behavior of an "Acropolis" application.

So with "Acropolis" Microsoft is really planning to change how business applications are developed. But the questions are,

• Is "Acropolis" capable of making business application programs easier to build and manage?
  
• Will it provide web-desktop intergration?
• Will these applications run on portable devices [sure will require .NET framework!]?
• Will these applications interact with other entriprise products build by other than Microsoft?

But for now, Microsoft seems to keep "Acropolis" under cover.

Microsoft SharedView : A Review

Micorsoft SharedView (Code named Tahiti ) is now a beta product available for download. It's a fast and easy way to share documents and screen views with small groups of friends or coworkers; anytime, anywhere. Use SharedView to put your heads together and collaborate. It is easy to install and all you need to get connected is an internet connection and a Windows Live ID. The main application runs in the system tray and places a toolbar at the top of your screen:

The current version can have a maximum of 15 users. To start the initiator have to sign-in (Start New Session) using in Windows Live ID. Once logged-in he can invite anyone to the collaborate through Instant Messenger, E- mail or Phone.I tried using E-mail where the invited user is given a session name and password to join the session. The next step is where all users accept the invitation and will be able to see what all application they can share from the toolbar's share button.

The user can share any application from the list and share with all the participants.

Looking at the new application I feel, Microsoft is about to throw away NetMeeting! You can install the latest SharedView application sharing software free from here. SharedView supports Windows XP, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate, and Windows Server 2003. SharedView Beta is only available in English.

A great step down

16th of this month, Bill Gates announced that he will step down from his day-to-day role at Microsoft Corp. in July 2008. Yes! It’s shocking news both good and bad. Ray Ozzie will immediately assume Gates's job of chief software architect and Craig Mundie will become chief research and strategy officer.

The public reason for Gates to step down is to spend more time at the Gates Foundation. The big question is : “ Will Microsoft be able to handle its rivals without the GREAT man?”. Company’s like Google Inc is way ahead of Microsoft in many grounds. What about the new Windows? The next version of windows named “Vista” is yet to be released. Important point is it has been delayed several time. Will Microsoft survive without the great architect? We shall see…